Friday, May 4, 2018

DACA Delay Exposes Hypocritical Republican Congress

Donald Trump as a candidate vowed “We will immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties.” In particular, he promised to roll back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gave legal status to illegal immigrants whose parents brought them to the United States as children.

In March, the president made good, announcing he was rolling back DACA. Shortly after the president initiated the program’s rollback, however, district court judges in Brooklyn and San Francisco issued national injunctions to keep DACA in place. Now, a district court judge in the District of Columbia has gone even further. His ruling would not only keeping the program in place, but order the government to accept new applications. What?

This recent out-of-control judicial ruling speaks to two central issues that, increasingly, are becoming the deciding factor when it comes to Trump’s ability to accomplish his agenda: district judges hell-bent on blocking his efforts, and a Congress unwilling to do its job.

In areas ranging from the travel ban to rolling back some of Obamacare’s most controversial mandates, district court judges have proven themselves to be enthusiastic obstacles, stretching the limits of their judicial power to block the president’s efforts. In frustrating Trump’s policy goals, they are also hemming in his ability to exercise the same executive authority that President Obama used to create these same programs.

In fact, the key objections to DACA from the Right are not solely with the conference of legal status, but rather the lawless manner with which the program was created. When Congress failed to pass Obama’s legislative priorities, Obama declared “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” and effectively assigned himself the legislative role reserved for Congress. DACA arrived shortly thereafter.